Does music give you the chills? Have you got a few favourite songs that leave you with goosebumps?

There's a scientific name for it: 'frisson'. And not everybody gets it. If you do, it sets you apart from the rest, and means your brain works a little differently, according to music graduate Matthew Sachs.

The researcher, who studied at the University of Southern California, says those who get a big reaction from music have "higher-order cognition".

Matthew ran a small test of 20 students, ten of which said they got goosebumps when listening to certain tunes. While conducting the study, he took brain scans of all the participants.

Have you got chills? Are they multiplying? Are you losing self-control?

Do you get chills? (Image: Moment RF)

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Matthew found that those who experienced the 'chills' has lots more neural connections between their 'auditory cortex', in charge of emotional processing centers, and the 'prefrontal cortex', which is involved in 'higher-order cognition' – such as listening and understanding music.

People who experience frisson might have stronger and more intense emotions, Matthews argues.

He writes in the Oxford Academic : “The idea being that more fibers and increased efficiency between two regions means that you have more efficient processing between them.”

Matthews plans to continue his research to try to ascertain more information about frisson and how it affects the human mind. The music itself plays a part, but so too does its context. People associate songs with particular moments, people, and memories. All of this has an impact.

Music often creates feelings of pleasure. But it can also be negative, or filled with adrenaline. Like horror movies, which can make your hair stand on end, high notes prompt a feeling of surprise as an evolutionary reaction. They sound like crying, a signal of distress.

Matthews thinks that his findings might be used to treat mental illnesses, such as depression.

“Depression causes an inability to experience pleasure of everyday things,” he says. “You could use music with a therapist to explore feelings.”